Certain articles of manufacture, such as gas turbine buckets may benefit from a hardfacing layer being applied to the surface of the article. Hardfacing may be applied by manual arc welding, however manual arc welding, while inexpensive and facile, requires a preheating step, is susceptible to cracking, and subject to variable weld quality due to welder variability and preheat variability. Laser cladding requires reduced heat input relative to manual arc welding, but is expensive and also susceptible to cracking. Brazing with a pre-sintered preform (“PSP”) provides adequate joint quality but requires a tight joint gap and is expensive. High Velocity Oxygen Fuel (“HVOF”) thermal spray is facile to apply, but requires additional processing. Further, none of these techniques are capable of closing holes in the article in a single process and simultaneously with hardfacing the article.